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He's been working on voting rights since he left the AG's office and was also responsible for reducing the sentences for thousands of non-violent offenders. He's been positioning himself for a run for over a year and has a lot of knowledge around the inner workings of politics and law enforcement that could send him rocketing upward quickly. I wouldn't laugh him off this early.

He also has the charisma of a snail, and nobody knows who he is. He would get slaughtered by the bigger names that are running, both the corporate Dems like Booker & Harris, as well as the progressives.

As you may remember, Clinton lost the 2016 presidential race to Trump. You might have missed it, it wasn't that big a story.
She lost that race despite these facts:
1. She was seeking to follow a popular Democratic president in office.
2. She drastically outraised and outspent Trump in all key battleground states.
3. A tape emerged just weeks before the end of the race where Trump made a laundry list of misogynistic comments.
4. Her opponent was Donald Trump.

Yes, there were mitigating factors -- most notably James Comey's decision to announce that he was re-opening the FBI investigation into her use of a private email server just days before the election. And WikiLeaks' strategic release of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee designed to embarrass the Clinton team and distract them from the task at hand.
BUT, but, but. The 2016 race was still a VERY winnable one for Clinton -- and one that most experts, polls and people expected her to win, and win easily.

...

And, remember this: Beating Trump is harder than it might look from the outside. For all of his abnormalities in office, he has demonstrated an ability to rally the Republican base like few GOP politicians before him. And he will do absolutely anything -- literally -- to win.

Democrats would do well to try a different approach than Clinton used in 2016, which, when boiled down, amounted to this: I'm running against Donald Trump, and you're certainly not going to vote for him, are you?

And they'd be well served to try a different candidate to deliver that different message -- not someone who was rejected by voters in the last presidential election even though she was running against the weakest Republican nominee in modern memory.

The third time is rarely the charm in presidential politics. Especially when you're talking about a candidate as divisive as Hillary Clinton.

-I am very much left-leaning
-I am very much waiting for a woman to sit in the Oval Office
-I voted for Hillary first and foremost because she is not Donald Trump

And that, I can promise you, the same reason that a LOT of people voted for her. It's not to say that she's the worst person in the world or something, but she really struggled to relate to a lot of people. Where the previous Democrat in office was charismatic and had a way of seeming as though he understood (or sincerely wanted to understand) people from basically every walk of life, Clinton just has this very "elitist" feel to her that makes it hard for many to believe she's truly passionate about fighting for them. We need a candidate who can not only fire up the base, but also connect with truly independent / swing voters.

How does she even remotely think people will WANT her to run again? She's doing this shit purely for her own ego at this point. I sincerely doubt that if Hillary tried to run again she wouldn't make it past the primaries. She's lost her goddamn mind if she thinks she can beat Trump in 2020.

Richard Ojeda will run for President in 2020. Long shot but I liked his most recent campaign. He's passionate that's for sure.

Ojeda is THE MAN, but I really wish he didn't do this. He is the PERFECT person to run either again for that House seat in 2020, or for WV Senate. Sure I'd love a guy like him as president, but he's putting the cart before the horse here. I think he has the wrong people firing him up. Win a congressional or statewide seat first, then let's talk President down the line.

If Hillary Clinton runs, and further actually takes the primary, they may as well just hand Trump a victory and wait til he's out in 4 more years. She has no chance at all, and that's not saying Trump is the better choice by any means. Her time is over.

I'm gonna be honest: I'm tired of a violently angry temperament in the White House. Listening to him sounds like a more articulate and intelligent Donald Trump...he makes good points, but the anger is just grating. He strikes me as the kind of guy who would be quick to start a war we don't need to start.

Don't get me wrong. I'm pissed off. I'd probably sound like him if I ran, too. But I wouldn't want ME in office. I would want someone who has that fire, but with a more even keel.

yeah we need an alternative to anger. anger is too easily manipulated and weaponized to bad ends. we need a politics of care. we need to care for people - especially those who are vulnerable and in need - rather than keep getting angry.

Populism on both sides of the aisle is the trend worldwide the last few years. An actual, real person like Ojeda that can speak to that populism from the left could be really powerful. I just think it's too early b/c he hasn't won something big enough yet.

Unfortunately the GOP has made our politics even more ruthless, corrupt and zero sum than ever before. They are not just going to stop once Trump is out of office, b/c their tactics were disgusting prior to him. So we need more fighters like Ojeda with some balls and willingness to stand up to the GOP, not less. If his anger (an anger that is palpable all over the country, and for sincere things) is part of the package, so be it. Cuz here's your current alternative:

There needs to be a middle though. I'd rather not have Schumer and Pelosi be the face of the Democratic party, but I also DEFINITELY don't want that Ojeda dude either. I don't care if he's a democrat or not. That type of anger is partially what got us to this point in the first place. We need level headed leadership, not just some beefy dude who's pissed off.

@bobbie solo - I'm glad you brought this up because I've been wanting to discuss this. I'm calling my rep, Steve Cohen, today to tell him to consider ALL candidates for speaker and that if someone new is ready to go, to please vote for them because he would have my support. I don't have any Dem senators here in TN, so I can't call any of them about Chuck Schumer.

Honestly, I'd be fine with keeping Pelosi because she has almost made it clear that she sees a possible speakership as a transitional position for her and not something she's planning on holding onto for long. I respect that she has read the room and understands that the future of the party is with someone younger than her who is ready to keep making progress on the work she has done. Say what you want about Pelosi and how she's been made toxic by the right; she was the driving force on climate change bills and with getting the ACA through the House and mostly through the Senate. I will always admire her for that. If someone isn't ready now, Pelosi could get them ready for two years from now.

Schumer - Jon Favreau said this on a recent Pod Save America and I agree with him 100% that it seems like Chuck Schumer moreso wants to be liked by everyone instead of being the Democratic party's leader in the Senate, and that it's a horrible quality to have since Harry Reid always made it a point to know that your likability goes downward when you achieve that position. I think Chuck did a great job with corralling his senators during the attempted ACA repeal last year, but I think he sacrificed way too much with judicial appointments just to get red-state Dems home to campaign in October. Those campaigns lasted less than a month - the judicial appointments last a lifetime and will have damaging effects in the long-term.

If ANY of you have a Dem senator, call them and tell them to consider someone else for leadership in the Senate, if only to send a message to Chuck that he needs to get tougher now. It's less about spending time in the Hamptons with Javanka and more about representing the people who elected him and his caucus to office.

There needs to be a middle though. I'd rather not have Schumer and Pelosi be the face of the Democratic party, but I also DEFINITELY don't want that Ojeda dude either. I don't care if he's a democrat or not. That type of anger is partially what got us to this point in the first place. We need level headed leadership, not just some beefy dude who's pissed off.

This is not the most important point about Ojeda and is 100% petty - but have any of you ever googled that t-shirt store? They print some truly horrendous shirts that way too many hoosiers in rural MO and TN LOVE to wear.

At this point, she'll only make it through the primaries if there's nobody better to get excited about, and if that's the case, that's a bigger problem than Clinton giving it another shot.

that article with its ‘stunning defeat’ line seems to make out she lost hideously to Trump when she won the popular vote by 2-3 million with him only winning by the electoral college going his way (which is what instigated the endless ‘voter fraud’ nonsense spouted by Trump

She would win the popular vote again I'm sure, but she is really, really unliked by alot of people, even some that voted for her. She excites no one. And after she failed to campaign properly in the swing states needed to over that 77,000 vote differential in 2016, I certainly wouldn't trust her to do the work to get over the hump again. People are so tired of the Clintons. It would be really hard to make the case AGAIN in those purple states. Similar to Ojeda, she just has the wrong people in her ear (think about all the sycophants that are in the Clinton orbit, and how little interaction she has with real people).

I don't agree. That's how we've gotten into the mess we're in: passive neo-liberalism/centrism from Obama & Dem leadership overall since 1992, while the Republicans drifted farther and farther right. Now the "center" is what used to be the moderate right. How about we try some unabashed progressive, "far left" policies with no compromise, and see what happens? We never try that. Haven't imo since the New Deal. If progressive policies fail like the fearmongers on the right proclaim (they won't though), then our POV on proper governance can be jettisoned to the dustbins of time. But let's actually try some first....b/c we try far right policies all the time and they almost always fuck the country, but then they get to still come to the table with more of their bullshit.

I don't agree. That's how we've gotten into the mess we're in: passive neo-liberalism/centrism from Obama & Dem leadership overall since 1992, while the Republicans drifted farther and farther right. Now the "center" is what used to be the moderate right. How about we try some unabashed progressive, "far left" policies with no compromise, and see what happens? We never try that. Haven't imo since the New Deal. If progressive policies fail like the fearmongers on the right proclaim (they won't though), then our POV on proper governance can be jettisoned to the dustbins of time. But let's actually try some first....b/c we try far right policies all the time and they almost always fuck the country, but then they get to still come to the table with more of their bullshit.

I don't know, I feel like things such as "universal health care" and "free college tuition" are considered pretty "far left", and they haven't really done anything.